Raising the minimum wage
America’s economy is built upon the free enterprise system which operates according to five principles: the freedom to choose our businesses, right to private property, profit motive, competition, and consumer freedom. This system allows pricing of goods and services and employee wages to be determined by the market. Raising the minimum wage will adversely affect the pricing of consumer goods and employee wages and can temporarily disrupt our economic system.
According to the report of “The Effects of a Minimum-Wage increase on Employment and Family Income” from the Congressional Budget Office, increasing the minimum wage to as little as $10.10 would result in a loss of 500,000 jobs (Page 2). Small and medium size businesses will be forced to lay off employees since they will not be able to afford the new minimum wage increase. Moreover, in accordance with the report of the Office of the Controller from San Francisco “Increasing the Minimum Wage: Economic Impact Report”, a $15 increase would reduce the city’s overall employment in the private sector by 15,270 (Page 19). These instant and drastic decreases in employment will increase consumer pricing temporarily disrupting the consumer freedom principle in which our economy is founded on. And although low-income workers will temporarily see an increase in wages, their earned income will be affected by the decrease of hours and decrease of employment as explained by a study from the Federal Reserve
The controversy over minimum wage has been ongoing. However, as explained in a Time article by Chris Lu on the subject, now is the prime time to raise the federal minimum wage. “Three out of four Americans support an increase; the economy is healthy; and many employers are already raising wages.” It’s reasonable to be worried about the consequences that raising the minimum wage might have in a time of crisis or unrest, but this quote mentions a healthy economy that would be able to handle the shifts in wages if things went south temporarily. Another argument made by opposers of raising the minimum is that businesses will be unable to survive. On the contrary, a good business will find it beneficial. “‘It’s a simple, but critical, concept: take care of your people and they will take care of your customers.’ For &pizza, higher wages reduce employee turnover, increase productivity and improve customer service.” Rather than hurting the economy, raising the minimum wage will help workers, business owners and the economy itself. A higher wage for all is
Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour can have detrimental effects on society. Some issues that may arise are increases in unemployment and small businesses not being able to handle the financial burden, which will lead into job benefit cuts. Furthermore, a rise in minimum wage will cause inflation and businesses to raise the prices of their goods and services. People purchasing power will continue to stay the same; the struggle to close the gap between products and services will not
A fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage will affect over three hundred thousand workers and cost over two hundred twenty eight million dollars over the next five years(Deng 1). San Francisco raised the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. That being said The Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institution, Adam Ozimek and Stephen Bronars of Edgewood Economics reported that since the increase many restaurants and hotels have laid off workers (Puzder 1). This comes as no surprise since in 2014 the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing the minimum wage to ten dollars and ten cents an hour would result in 500,000 job losses ( Puzder 1). As of right now 6.5 million Americans are working part time because they’re unable to find full-time jobs and opportunities ( Puzder 1). Raising minimum wage is only going to hurt those that are currently part time, unemployed and the upcoming generation of young adults just now about to enter the working
Investing in employees is the single most important investment that a company can make. A lot of Americans are now in deep poverty, or have a huge amount of debt to catch up too. With the thought of that, in the United States today, millions of Americans are living on the federal minimum wage of $7.25. For this case, it is necessary that there is a need for an increase in the federal minimum wage because it would be much more beneficial to both the economy of the United States and to individual workers because more Americans need spending power, higher minimum wage will help close the wide gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the working poor need to protect themselves in case something goes wrong.
“A 15 percent increase in the minimum wage nationwide would destroy about 290,000 to 590,000 young people's jobs, and about 400,000 to 800,000 jobs overall” (Henderson, David R). Due to the Fair labor Standards act, the federal minimum wage, or the lowest you can pay an employee for work, currently stands at $7.25 an hour. Although a number of Americans think that raising the minimum wage would benefit our country, it would actually bring a number of problems to our economy, such as a rise in job loss and high school dropout.
In 2009 when the federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25 per hour, this is the last time that the minimum wage for Wisconsin was increased. I for one as a college student have a hard time paying for college only making around minimum wage. Other adults that have families and that are working for minimum wage have a much more difficult time providing for their families and paying for all of their expenses. In many cases some of them work two jobs just so their family can some extra money to do other activities. You have stated that helping people get careers that pay more than minimum wage is what you want to focus on, so there is no reason to increase the minimum wage for Wisconsin. I believe that the minimum wage in Wisconsin at this time is not high enough to pay for the average person’s lifestyle and should see a small increase to reduce the poverty in Wisconsin.
Did you know if minimum wage were to raise, unemployment rates would dramatically increase because employers would not want to over staff knowing that consumers are going to be smarter with spending their money. I have read two articles regarding rising minimum wage one called There Is a Moral and Economic Case for Raising the Minimum Wage and the other Minimum Wage Laws Are Immoral and Harmful regarding rising minimum wage and whether this act should be passed or not. Minimum wage should not be raised because it will decrease living funds, encourage inflation, and raise the unemployment rate. If minimum wage goes up, everything else would raise with it and that’s where everyone’s money would go.
What’s in it to lose? Nothing because by doing so it can help to reduce the government welfare spending at the same time helping someone to at least make ends meet. Therefore, raising the minimum wage will help people to take of their family basic needs such as good nutritious food, instead of the unhealthy food, health assurance for them to go to the doctor and a place to stay. People that work minimum wages not always able to afford their basic needs. They sometimes prone to sickness because of their unhealthy lifestyle and with no health assurance they won’t be able to afford to go the doctor or their
"No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty."
Minimum wage is one of today most debated topic among Americans society. Whether or not the government should raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. This is shown by these two articles who have a different view about the topic. In the first articles written by John Komlos Title “Column: Why raising the minimum wage is good economics” the author claim that the minimum wage in the US is way too low for the high living cost in today society. Whereas the second article written by Harry J. Holzer call “A $15-hour minimum wage could harm America’s poorest workers” he claims that by raising the wage to $15 is too much and it would actually do more harm than good for minimum wage workers. Both of the articles supported their claim by giving static and experts research in order to back up their augment. As for Holzer, he uses a lot of his opinion in order make his claims which are really strong as wells. However, on the other side Komlos use more static and calculation as well as emotional tone in order to help paint the picture for the reader to see what he is trying to say. Which this give it a more well-rounded view of the topic more.
The minimum wage is one of the most discussed issues around the country. Everyone has a different opinion if raising the minimum wage would help families across the country to have a better lifestyle or if would cause an unbalance in the economy. Democrats and Republicans have a different view on this issue, while Democrats supports raising the minimum wage by $15 an hour, Republicans have stated that they refuse increasing the wage because it would leave different factions of Americans outside of job opportunities and it would cause an unstable economy. The current presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton from the Democratic Party and Donald Trump from the Republican Party have differed in their opinions about the raising the economy with the minimum wage. In order to make a huge decision in the economy of the country it is necessary to see the facts and numbers to evaluate which decision would make the economy stable and grow equally.
In early March 2016 Governor Jerry Brown passed a new bill to increase the minimum wage in California from ten to fifteen dollars by the year 2022. The minimum wage will be increased by one dollar each year until 2022. This will give businesses enough time to meet state requirements to raise wages for employees. The bill was created to help people who are making less than minimum wage but it will disable California’s economy system and cause negative effects for people who are living on the current minimum wage system. The rise of the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs, get hours reduced, lose health benefits, and companies to go bankrupt. The increase of wage will cause inflation of prices on goods and services that companies provide. California’s state taxes will increase, causing people to pay more taxes and lose more money from their paychecks. It will also cause people to stay away from higher education because it will be easier to find a higher paying job without a degree. The raise of the minimum wage will cause negative implications, both immediate and in the future, and will also affect higher education.
Proponents of raising the minimum wage claim that if the minimum wage was raised, then many economic and social problems would be alleviated. This contention is at odds both with economic principles and years of creditable research. The effect of raising or even having a minimum wage has been studied extensively and the majority of studies have proven that raising a minimum wage does not have the desired effect. Both micro and macroeconomic forces affect the results of raising the minimum wage. The secondary effects of raising the minimum wage are bad both for
“Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. … And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”
Congress enacted the federal minimum wage in 1938, during the Great Depression. Congress had two goals; keeping workers away from poverty and boosting consumer spending for economic recovery. Today, there is a debate, whether we should increase the minimum wage again. Increasing the minimum wage is useful for several reasons. First, the current minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation. Second, a higher income level reduces employee turnover and increases efficiency and ultimately, raising the minimum wage does not reduce employment. Even with high unemployment rates, the minimum wage is useful for the economy.